History Main / AttackPatternAlpha

*** PlayedWith in "Message in a Bottle" as noted in the page quote above. The Doctor finds himself on the experimental ''Prometheus'', and is trying to order it to defend itself from Romulan attack. The computer asks for an attack pattern. He tries "Attack pattern... Alpha?", which is a valid pattern. In practice, this attack pattern appears to be a "head straight for the target and keep firing" manoeuver.
*** In "Basics" they have a spread of photon torpedoes fired in "dispersal pattern Sierra", evasive manoeuvres Lambda (and Gamma) sequence, and a "standard Alpha search pattern."

** The actual phrase "attack pattern ___" (typically Delta, Omega, Theta) comes up a lot when Sisko's commanding the ''Defiant'', and yet it never looks quite the same each time. In one episode where he ends up in the mirror universe, he orders mirror-O'Brien to use Delta against a massive Klingon juggernaut. O'Brien has no idea what Sisko's talking about, so he specifies "port to starboard, ''hard''." Presumably, he walks O'Brien through the rest of the steps.

** The Picard Manoeuver. In-universe, this is a tactic that exploited FasterThanLightTravel: if you time it right, the enemy will detect not just your ship but also the limited-to-lightspeed image of where-it-used-to-be, and then hopefully shoot the wrong one. ''On set'', this was the nickname the other actors gave to Creator/PatrickStewart's habit of tugging his costume's tunic down every time he sat down to ensure a camera friendly appearance (all the actors were instructed to do it, but Creator/PatrickStewart did his in a most aggressive manner). In a Creator/PeterDavid [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse spin-off novel]], other captains call it the same thing.

*** PlayedWith in "Message in a Bottle" as noted in the page quote above. The Doctor finds himself on the experimental ''Prometheus'', and is trying to order it to defend itself from Romulan attack. The computer asks for an attack pattern. He tries "Attack pattern... Alpha?", which is a valid pattern.
*** In practice, this attack pattern appears to be a "head straight for the target and keep firing" manoeuver.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': From Volume 2, Team RWBY began using attack names that symbolise a combination of a pair of powers to achieve specific effects, such as Ice Flower (Ruby's gun and Weiss's ice powers), Bumblebee (Blake's weapon reach and Yang's strength), Ladybug (Ruby and Blake's combination of speed and range), Checkmate (Weiss's SuperEmpowering with Blake's range), Freezerburn (Yang's fire and Weiss's ice to obscure the battlefield with steam). [[note]]Some of the names (Bumblebee, Ladybug and Freezerburn) were a nod to the [[IdiosyncraticShipNaming fandom's shipping names]]; the creators deliberately avoided giving all of the attacks shipping names for fear of being seen as ship baiting (Ice Flower instead of White Rose and Checkmate instead of Monochrome), but didn't realise until it was too late that some fans preferred Checkmate to Monochrome.[[/note]] In Volume 3, they then parody the fandom shipping names when Jaune fails to convince his own team to adopt similar attack strategies after they start arguing about the quality of the names.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': From Volume 2, Team RWBY began using attack names that symbolise a combination of a pair of powers to achieve specific effects, such as Ice Flower (Ruby's gun and Weiss's ice powers), Bumblebee (Blake's weapon reach and Yang's strength), Ladybug (Ruby and Blake's combination of speed and range), Checkmate (Weiss's SuperEmpowering with Blake's range), Freezerburn (Yang's fire and Weiss's ice to obscure the battlefield with steam). Some of the names (Bumblebee, Ladybug and Freezerburn) were a nod to the [[IdiosyncraticShipNaming fandom's shipping names]]; the creators deliberately avoided giving all of the attacks shipping names for fear of being seen as ship baiting (Ice Flower instead of White Rose and Checkmate instead of Monochrome), but didn't realise until it was too late that some fans preferred Checkmate to Monochrome. In Volume 3, they then parody the fandom shipping names when Jaune fails to convince his own team to adopt similar attack strategies after they start arguing about the quality of the names.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': From Volume 2, Team RWBY began using attack names, which symbolise a pair that combines their powers to create a specific attack name: Ice Flower is uses Ruby's gun and Weiss's ice powers; Bumblebee uses Blake's weapon reach and Yang's strength; Ladybug involves Ruby and Blake's combination of speed and range; Freezerburn obscures the battlefield with steam using Yang and Weiss's fire and ice powers. Some of the names were a nod to the [[IdiosyncraticShipNaming fandom's shipping names]], although the creators deliberately avoided giving all of the attacks shipping names for fear of being seen as ship baiting. In Volume 3, they then parody the fandom shipping names when Jaune fails to convince his own team to adopt similar attack strategies after they start arguing about the names.

* Used by Ruby for Team ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'''s two-person combo maneuvers. The fact that the names used for said attacks are also [[IdiosyncraticShipNaming fandom shipping names]] for the pairings was a bonus.
** Parodied later on, as Team JNPR start trying to do the same in their battle against Team BRNZ during the Vytal Tournament, but it breaks out into an argument, as the members can't agree on the attack names. They completely ignore Team BRNZ for several minutes while they debate, much to BRNZ's chagrin.

** Variation: The ''Sha Yu'' (Shark) is a uniquely Liao Battlemech, and a commonly accepted codephrase for pilots of the ''Sha Yu'' is "Blood in the water," hich is shorthand for "I'm about to pull a flanking maneuver at top speed, followed by a couple minutes of sustained laser fire, followed by almost melting. Cover me."

* [[http://samandfuzzy.com/archive.php?comicID=924 Mocked shamelessly]] in ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy''.

** Attack Patterns Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omega are all Tactical techniques which are extremely useful in battle (Evasive maneuvers, as mentioned above, is also available). Gamma is given to a Jem'Hadar ship, for whatever reason.

** The Picard Maneuver. In-universe, this is a tactic that exploited FasterThanLightTravel: if you time it right, the enemy will detect not just your ship but also the limited-to-lightspeed image of where-it-used-to-be, and then hopefully shoot the wrong one. ''On set'', this was the nickname the other actors gave to Creator/PatrickStewart's habit of tugging his costume's tunic down every time he sat down to ensure a camera friendly appearance (all the actors were instructed to do it, but Creator/PatrickStewart did his in a most aggressive manner). In a Creator/PeterDavid [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse spin-off novel]], other captains call it the same thing.

** In that same mirror universe episode, Sisko orders a run at the aforementioned Klingon juggernaut, which mirror-O'Brien dubs "pattern suicide".

* In ''Manga/MuhyoAndRoji'', Goryo, an executor who is skilled at using tactics in exorcisms, uses Maneuver [[OneHundredAndEight 108]] with Ebisu in an attempt to corner and trap a spirit.

* Even SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}} is known to use them, albeit in a less than traditional way : "Oh, no-- he sees us! Quick -- evasive strategy 423! Hide behind the person in front of you!"

When the good guys are in TheArmy, part of TheSquad or even on a space ship, they're bound to get into a lot of fights, and what better way to show that you take this seriously than by going into Attack Pattern Alpha? Attack patterns are a convenient way of saying, "the good guys attack the bad guys and they know what they're doing," [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee without going into detail that would bog down the action]].

Space ships or fighter planes will usually go into a formation, do some fancy flying and shoot to blow stuff up. This can get hilarious if the show heavily recycles footage, as last week's WronskiFeint can become tonight's Attack Pattern Alpha.

* In WesternAnimation/Futurama, Protocol 62 is mentioned as the standard way to stop an epidemic. It's never specified what it is, but it apparantly involves a large number of piranhas.

* One episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}} Disney's Hercules]]'' features Hercules trying out a row of plans named after the letters of the Greek alphabet. (Plan Alpha, Plan Beta, Plan Gamma, ect.) After reaching Plan Omega, Phil declares that they have run out of plans.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Rolemaster}}'' had three types of Combat Languages in its Arms Companion supplement. The Class I version was short, simple commands that could be shouted and easily understood in the noise of combat, such as "Charge!", "Flank right!" and "Fall back!".

** ''Anime/Gundam00'' virtually operates on these due to the tactical forecasting of Sumeragi Lee Noriega for Celestial Being, and Kati Mannequin for A-Laws. A few of these, such as S-33 are mentioned and shown executed during Setsuna's one man challenge of [[spoiler:The Trinities]] when [[spoiler: Tieria]], of all people, shows up and begins backing him up by taking tactical command of the situation. [[spoiler: Lockon]] joins in a few moments later to keep things fair.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* WebVideo/OutsideXbox, in their ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' adventures, have devised an attack plan known as "Bear Down Protocol". This consists of Merilwen the elven druid [[{{Animorphism}} turning into a cat]], being scooped up by Dob the half-orc, and thrown at the target's face, at which point Merilwen [[BearsAreBadNews turns into a bear]] in midair.

'''Odd:''' Let's go!
** With later IronicEcho...
--->'''Yumi:''' Lateral flying pattern and pincer strategy.\\

* In the second episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', "Christmas With the Joker", one reason you can tell that the show is [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness still finding its feet]] is that "Robin! Operation: Cause and Effect!" is apparently Batman Code for "Robin, would you kindly run real fast and blow a hole in that wall with a grenade, please and thank you?" This is the sort of thing that would feel more at home in ''Series/{{Batman}} '66'' starring Creator/AdamWest and Burt Ward than what ''Batman: TAS'' eventually became.

!!Examples

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

* ''The WesternAnimation/{{SpongeBob SquarePants}} Movie'' has Plankton initiating Evil Plan Z, after he remembers that the alphabet doesn't stop at Y.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** Apparently, "Blue 32" is the only play ever used in football, according to TV. In real life, colors and numbers are usually meaningless, unless the play must be changed after the lineup because of how the defense lines up.

* Likewise the game ''Diplomacy'', which also has a lively literature on the subject of opening theory for each of the seven powers featured.

** American football plays often use this sort of naming, especially when calling audibles since it's much more concise when your play clock is running out and timeouts are a precious commodity. Z-95 I-right flex![[note]]One possible interpretation: I-formation (halfback and fullback line up in a line behind the quarterback), tight end to the right of the offensive line, "Z" receiver (flanker, a receiver who's at least a yard behind the line of scrimmage and usually on the same side of the field as the tight end so in this case the right side) has option to run either a 9-route ("fly"/"go", just run upfield as fast as you can) or a 5-route ("out", run downfield a set number of yards like 10 and then turn 90 degrees to the sideline to shake a defender on you)[[/note]]